


Pick a Pocket or Two

by allyoops



Category: Original Work
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Bodice-Ripper, Captivity in a post chaise, Cheerful rapist, F/M, Hand Over Mouth, Hand a couple other places too, Moderately resourceful but far too gently-reared victim, Rapist having a thoroughly self-indulgent good time, Ravishment-flavoured noncon, Really thorough non-consensual sexual education in a post chaise, Regency, Sex in a post chaise, Tearful victim, Unrepentent rapist, Vaginal Fingering, Vaginal Sex, Victim Forced to Ride Rapist, Virginal Victim, condescending praise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-13
Updated: 2020-12-13
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:48:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27382204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allyoops/pseuds/allyoops
Summary: Charlotte must go to her other aunt when the first one can ill afford to keep her.Her journey proves far more eventful than she ever could have wished.
Relationships: Highwayman/Regency Lady
Comments: 14
Kudos: 122
Collections: Consent Issues Exchange 2020





	Pick a Pocket or Two

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RobberBaroness](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RobberBaroness/gifts).



Charlotte rattled along in the carriage with her aunt's dismal warning ringing in her ears.

"The road, Charlotte, is not at its best this time of year."

For somebody so prone to dire portents of doom and gloom, Charlotte thought that Aunt Heloise had really reverted from form in this case. The road, thought Charlotte, was so very far from its best that it could have been greatly improved by not existing at all. At least driving on the grass would have provided a manner of cushioning that muck and ruts and rock denied.

The wheel struck a particularly large version of one of these things, and Charlotte was jolted off her seat altogether. She struck her knee on the opposing bench, cried out, then regained her composure for the reclamation of her perch.

"All right in there?" the wheel-boy called back, perfunctory in his attention, as befitted an individual hired solely for the occasion. None of the tender solicitation of a family retainer for Charlotte, whose family purse barely extended to pin money sufficient to last her til the new year, never mind the upkeep of a team of four and the livery and salary of those individuals driving the contraption that bore her, in rudimentary comfort, to The Other Aunt. No, for Charlotte it was a hired coach, a post chaise with only minimal additional comforts fostered by the slightly superior firm which The Other Aunt had written Aunt Heloise to advise that she should hire.

"I am sure I am quite capable of engaging a suitable conveyance," Aunt Heloise had said unhappily, but such was her awe of the The Other Aunt that she did as she was bade, and meekly turned over all sums demanded of her for the conveyance, though Charlotte had some fancy that you were not meant to be so forthcoming with the fee but rather keep it back in parcels so as to dole it out with each successive achievement of a coach house until one arrived, at last, at one's destination.

But Aunt Heloise had very little practical knowledge of the ways of the world, and Charlotte had even less than she, so both had bowed to the edict of The Other Aunt who had far more than they. For a short time The Other Aunt had even been _married_ , though the marriage had been altogether unsatisfactory and the bridegroom a real trial who had thankfully seen fit to depart the world before any child could be persuaded to enter it, leaving The Other Aunt unencumbered in every way that could fairly be said to matter, and quite free to take in her orphan niece when Aunt Heloise's own meagre purse began to give way to the demands placed on it by the great cost of supporting two, and two in the city at that.

"Of course it's not right that I should keep you from her, if you really wish to go," Aunt Heloise decided. "She is, I think, comfortable in her means, and could surely provide you those modest comforts that are here denied us both. At least, I think it will not be a _great_ trial for her to supply _some_ of them." As she made this hopeful prediction her faded, pretty face had melted into an expression of such material relief that Charlotte knew she had better wish to go, or else they'd soon find they had nowhere to go at all. So she had acquiesced to the summons of The Other Aunt, which came couched in such terms of Christian duty as can usually only be conveyed from behind the pulpit at Lent, and with even less warmth. She had supported Aunt Heloise in her arrangements for the post chaise, and she had orchestrated the packing of her few belongings in a trunk that had been got from a gentleman in the market square who sold such things to second, third, and even fourth owners with all the sympathetic discretion that could be wished by a lady who had to purchase a second hand trunk while feeling like something of a castoff herself.

Not, Charlotte thought, as the coach struck another rut and she clutched the edge of the bench in grim resolve to remain seated upon it, that Aunt Heloise had made her feel unwanted. To the contrary, her aunt had wept in real and visible grief as they parted from each other that morning, and Charlotte had found it equal parts affecting and uncomfortable to behold. But Aunt Heloise could not afford to keep her, whereas The Other Aunt could, and so Charlotte must be cast off onto uncertain tides of fortune if she did not wish Aunt Heloise shortly find herself adrift on the same.

Charlotte's own sense of Christian duty was not so sternly expressed as was the Other Aunt's, but it was well developed all the same.

At this point in her reflections, Charlotte became aware that the pace of their journey had slowed. She leaned forward to kneel on the little foldable bench set low in the front wall of the carriage and carefully parted the curtains which guarded the wide windows set above it. The sight of a cobbled dooryard, warmly lit with lamplight and already bustling with activity as a stable boy, groom and some manner of larger, more official man hurried forth, brought real and welcome relief, most particularly to parts of Charlotte that she did not discuss in company.

She alit from her perch in the post chaise with palpable tenderness in every step, and leaned very gratefully on the arm of the gentleman who handed her down, a tall broad sort of person with a coat that had suffered numerous spongings-off to no discernibly good effect. He was the landlord, he informed her, and such comforts as his coach house could afford her while she rested from her journey and awaited the arrival of the second post-boy, who was unaccountably delayed this evening, were hers to command.

So saying, he passed her into the charge of his wife and a pair of maids of all work, thereafter to be escorted into a very satisfactory little public room with a good fire and furniture that was, if unadorned, certainly no less comfortable than the bench of which Charlotte had so recently taken her leave.

She sank with relief, even delight, into a chair by the fire and accepted the offer of a meal, for which the maid communicated firmly that she was expected to pay in advance. The fee was passed over in coin of the realm, and Charlotte was left to settle into her seat and enjoy the warmth of the fire. So dozy and dazed was she, able at last to relax after holding herself for so long erect and uncomfortable on the spartan surface of the thinly-padded bench, that she actually did nod off. When she next came to herself it was with the uncomfortable prickling sensation of a person who has been too long observed, and she sat upright at once to discover that it was so.

At least, she was being observed. As to the exact duration of the observation period she could not truly say, but from the look of the gentleman's posture against the wall, he had not only recently arrived.

"Ah," he sighed, "she sleeps no more."

" _Sir_ ," said Charlotte, painfully aware of the absence of any maid in the room, and her food besides. Then she ceased all speech, because she could not think of what else to say, and wondered instead if she should have said anything at all.

The gentleman appeared to have some correct manner of dress, but Aunt Heloise had taken pains to impart the knowledge that a gentleman could not be known by his garments or even manners alone. There was more to it than that, she had insisted, but what exactly more than that it was she had declined—or had perhaps been unable—to say. Still, Charlotte, observing the way this man stood half in shadow, beyond the reach of the firelight and below the shadow of a shelf set in the wall, so that she could only observe the faintest suggestion of features beneath the brim of his hat, felt that in his tall and well-formed person there was something definitely of the type to which Aunt Heloise had been referring when she made it clear that some gentlemen who appeared to be were, in fact, anything but.

"Where is our hostess?" she wondered, and the gentleman stirred himself to further speech.

"Holding back your dinner, no doubt, in the hope that you will sleep through to the time of departure and spare her the expense of feeding you."

"But I've already paid her for my meal," said Charlotte. She did not need to see his face very clearly to know that he smiled in answer to this indignant declaration.

"Have you, indeed? Yes they make sure to get their money up front here, and no mistake. But if they can avoid giving you food for it, or food you will have time to let cool and eat before you leave, you must not think too little of them for doing so. They have their pound of flesh to claim, same as the rest of us."

Charlotte thought this was very unfair, but she supposed that to say so to a man of the world, such as this man clearly was, would mark her as a woman very unworldly. So she said only,

"Could I trouble you to communicate to them that I am awake, Sir? Or, if you prefer the warmth of this room, could I trouble you for the direction of the—the kitchen?"

"Not at all," he said, after a perceptible hesitation. "Allow me to fetch them to you. I have no wish to see a lady deprived of her meal, no matter how the landlord's profits may suffer. A body must eat, after all." So saying he made a small bow and departed from the room, so that Charlotte was left to wonder how she felt about a man she had only just met so boldly referring to the needs of her body.

The arrival of the landlady soon distracted her from this indelicacy, and the plate of food that was brought with no apparent ill will for her having asked after it did even more to claim her focus. She fell upon the fare with sincere gratitude. Sufficient in quantity was the meal that, after the meagre portions such as her aunt's table could most regularly afford, Charlotte was soon sated and did not even much mind when the soup was brought out quite late, still too hot for her to touch, mere minutes before her landlord appeared in the doorway to announce that the second post-boy had been found at last.

Charlotte communicated appreciation to her hostess for the meal, pulled her wrapper very snug around her to guard against the late autumn chill, and went out to the dooryard once more. She could perceive the revitalization of her flesh and spirit when the sight of her same coach as before awoke in her no apprehension for the tenderness of her posterior, but rather only admiration for how smart it looked, all bright yellow and gleaming black, the lantern wicks freshly trimmed and flickering bright in their little glass houses, the curtains all snugly drawn against a chill and her luggage, strapped on the forward platform, apparently newly supplied with a great quantity of carriage rugs piled all about, no doubt made available should she wish to guard her against the night air’s chill.

A new team of horses waited, all four fresh and picking their feet with every appearance of being ready to run. The post-boys—small men, really, wizened and well-wrapped, legs guarded in irons to protect them from the swinging centre post—were already mounted, bundled against the cold, one wiry figure each perched upon a horse's back in preparation to guide them through the dark of the country roads and onward to Charlotte's final destination.

There is, of course, something restorative about a warm meal and comfortable seating by a good fire, which Charlotte herself observed as she took her seat once more and discovered that even the prospect of some hours remaining on the bench, with only the dubious warmth of The Other Aunt to anticipate as the reward of her journey's end, could not daunt her good cheer. After all, she reasoned, there were so many even less fortunate in their lot than she, and she had so little to complain of in the usual way of things, that it would be foolishness to begin now.

Caught firmly in the embrace of such spiritual warmth as had occasioned the onset of this gratitude, Charlotte settled in to the final leg of her journey with something very approaching optimism, and even joy.

This state of being endured for a mile and a quarter, and a very pleasant mile and a quarter they were, which it seems particularly important to note given the unpleasantness of the miles that were to follow. The first intimation Charlotte had that her fortunes were about to take a turn came in rather brutal fashion when the carriage, still rocking very ruttily and jarringly along the usual manner of country road, suddenly gave a dip and swayed to one side, as if the thing had been briefly, badly unbalanced. This was followed by the appearance at her window of a human head—attached, one should note, to neck and shoulders and body besides, but still very alarming under the circumstances, as the sudden and unexpected appearance of any human head must be.

Charlotte at once drew breath to scream, which action brought the whole man through the door in a trice to grapple her into brutal silence.

His person was formed hard and lean and inordinately powerful; resistance against his grip was impossible. A strong hand with long, hard fingers came down on her face with terrible force, sealing her mouth, stifling all sound, and forcing her to look up into his face in the bargain.

It was a familiar face, which Charlotte thought very odd for she could not recall ever having seen this man in her life. She was certain she would remember if she had, for he was possessed of the sort of aggressive good features, so regular and classically formed with just enough asymmetry and disarrangement to render him more interesting than purely artistic of shape, that she could imagine herself feeling quite fondly toward under different circumstances.

 _Very_ different circumstances.

Charlotte's current circumstances, wherein she was stifled by the hand of a stranger in a dimly-lit carriage interior, with her only light source that of the lanterns hanging beyond her windows and the silver of the rising moon, and her only source of warmth—now that this fiend had dislodged her wrapper and pressed his body so hard up against hers—the very person of the person who had attacked her, were, any fair minded person might agree, less than ideal. And about to become even moreso, though of that fate Charlotte yet had only the briefest and faintest of intimations, which was perhaps as well for her, for she was not, as we have already seen, a very worldly girl, and she would not have liked knowing too much of what was to follow.

For a moment, Charlotte almost fainted. This was mostly owing to the hand on her face, for it covered her mouth and nose besides so that her flow of air was badly restricted and she began to see things very dimly and swimmingly indeed, slumping over in her seat until the man holding her cursed and released her mouth.

"God's balls, woman, do not give way on me now," he growled, giving her a sharp shake to jolt her awake again. "That is entirely out of the order of things."

Charlotte came to herself with a kind of piteous whimper, and stared into the face of the man who had forced his way into her carriage. He was, as she had already marked, very handsome. But he was also very familiar, and at last she knew why.

"You were the man in the coach house," she accused, and he sighed in some relief at hearing her voice.

"So she is not beyond her wits just yet. Good." He sat back against the facing bench, the little fold-away half seat which ran below the curtained windows at his back. "Very good. I thought I had not held you so hard as all that, but then thought perhaps you are not used to being held at all."

"I am not," agreed Charlotte, "but that's no affair of yours."

"Contrariwise, Miss Parsons. At the moment there is nobody with greater command of your affairs than I."

Charlotte regarded him with a kind of waking befuddlement which obscured what should otherwise surely have been her horror.

"How do you know my name?"

"She is remarkably quick to the heart of the thing," mused her unknown intimate, "but she misses the meat entirely. I do not recall any who have been so fixated on the minutiae yet so particularly avoidant of the musculature, as it were, of the form of the proceedings . . . curious. Very well, Miss Parsons, if you must have it, I learned your name from the landlord of the coach house when he spoke it aloud in the corridor. And now, if you have no further questions, let us proceed to the business at hand."

"What is _your_ name?" Charlotte blurted. She was not a fool, she knew well of what business to hand he spoke—no man who concealed himself under carriage rugs on the forward luggage rack and swung into the coach when it was in motion was up to any good—but she also knew full well she would be unable to oblige him in the procurement of monies likely to satisfy a gentleman who so clearly made his living at relieving folks of theirs, so the longer she could delay the revelation and the ire that was certain to follow, to her mind, the better.

Her captor, not privy to her line of thoughts, could only stare in astonishment.

"My _name_? Whatever for? Of what possible use is my name to you?"

Charlotte said, "Why, so that I may call you by it."

"Call me—Miss Parsons, I assure you, this is not a social connection which is designed to endure beyond the moment of my departure. Indeed, most women of your sort have already flung a purse at my head and got me out of the carriage by now. So," he produced a pistol from his pocket with a kind of casual, businesslike attitude which spoke to his great intimacy with the handling of the thing, "let us to work. I will take everything of value you have on your person and trouble you no further. You shall continue on in your journey and your people will receive you and your tale with all comfort, horror and awe. I will be a richer man, you a wiser woman, and that will be the end of it." He punctuated this prediction by leaning forward, the better to train the pistol on her breast. "What say you to these terms?"

Charlotte made a helpless little gesture with her hands.

"But . . . Sir. I have none."

"Eh?" he said, still pleasant, but somehow pleasant in a way that was not quite as pleasant as he had been before.

"None," Charlotte repeated. "No—I mean, nothing of value. It—here." She fumbled her little purse earnestly from the pocket she had cut and sewn into the seam of her dress for just that purpose. "You can see for yourself. It's—well, all of it. It's all I have. You may take it, of course, but I think you will find it a very poor offering."

"Very poor," said her captor frankly, staring into the shabby silken depths. A wry twist appeared at the corner of his mouth and he snapped the little purse shut, tossing it back into Charlotte's lap with a much colder air.

"Now, Miss Parsons," he said slowly, "perhaps I have not made myself clear. I make my living at this business of banditry, you understand?"

"Oh yes," whispered Charlotte. "I understand. I can see you are most adept at your profession. You are clearly very well practised."

He blinked, as if such praise were somehow even more discombobulating than the brevity of Charlotte's coinage. Then he shook his head, and carried on.

"I have being doing this for some time now, and let me tell you, I know your sort. Some ladies fancy themselves too clever by half, and they try to hide their goods under their skirts—"

Charlotte squeaked.

"—or up their sleeve or in the lining of their cap or any other silly little place they think a man won't think to check. You see? Relying on the feminine mystery and their assumption of innate gentlemanly behaviour in a highwayman to shield their person from," he paused delicately and the pistol came a little closer, in a style Charlotte did not altogether like very well, "the _indignity_ of a search."

He smiled. It was a lovely, awful smile. Charlotte could not repress a shiver.

"You see?"

"I see," Charlotte whispered.

"Therefore, Miss Parsons, there can be no point to such deception. I will uncover it, I give you my word. If need be," again, that dreadful, creeping delicacy, "I will uncover . . . everything."

Charlotte quailed. Her assailant smiled, a dreadful rakish sympathetic smile that did nothing to persuade her of his good intentions.

"Now what say you, Miss Parsons? Going to give up the goods? Or," the pistol now rested on her knee, on her actual knee, or at least the curve of it through her gown, "will you instead insist that I . . . take them?"

Charlotte was suffused with tremors.

"Mr. . . Mr. . ."

"Damn it," said he, in much less sinister, far franker tones, "Southey. My name is Southey. Alas, there is nobody on hand to perform the introduction."

"Mr. Southey," Charlotte said meekly. "I pray you will believe me. I have—I have nothing. You may search my luggage if you wish—"

" _Fait accompli_ , Miss Parsons," said Mr. Southey, unblushing in his confession of such mendacity. "They don't attend the stuff very closely, you know. That was a really cut rate couch house you stopped in at."

"Oh," said Charlotte, because what could be said to such news but that? "Is it? I—I really don't know coach houses."

"You astonish me," said Mr. Southey dryly.

"Oh no," said Charlotte, suspecting no irony, "upon my word I do not. I—I have never even travelled before. I have really no money to speak of, I give you my word. In my luggage, you must know, I have all my worldly goods. A few books, my workbasket, my second-best petticoat—"

"Second best? What in God's name became of the first?" interrupted Mr. Southey, with every appearance of genuine interest. Charlotte turned bright pink.

"I am wearing it," she whispered. Mr. Southey sat forward on the bench, openly entertained.

"Go on, Miss Parsons," he said. His voice was very different now. She did not like it. “What other treasures have you to offer a poor bandit such as I? Enumerate them, if you please.”

"—my . . . my mitts, of course, and my gowns . . . they are not very good, Mr. Southey, though I do not expect you to know that. Men do not, I think, know much about ladies’ clothes."

"Do they not?" he said softly. The pistol was back, but featherlight, very creeping and sinister as he slid it gently up her thigh. It advanced like the head of a snake which had not yet made up its mind to strike. "And what exactly do you know of men, Miss Parsons?"

"Why, nothing, Mr. Southey. I think I can fairly say I know nothing of men at all."

A long, soft sigh escaped Mr. Southey. His pistol—what had he done with it? Charlotte's gaze skittered sideways to find he had set it on the bench beside her. He took her hands in his.

"I believe you," he said. "By God, I believe you. But Miss Parsons," his tone became markedly apologetic, and she really did believe his regret, "I am sorry to say you will not like to hear what happens next.

"I gave you my word I'd take everything of value you had to give. And in this case, Miss Parsons, some poor fool has put you on the road to me with nothing to trade for your life but your virtue. You see?" his fingertip brushed gently under her chin. "What a terrible position for a gently reared girl to be in. I've nothing left to use you for, Miss Parsons, save that purpose for which every woman may be used."

Charlotte swallowed delicately, so that his fingertip rode the bump and roll of her throat, and attempted to divine what purpose that might be.

" . . . domestic service?"

"Strewth," said Mr. Southey. "By God I am going to enjoy this. Miss Parsons!" he caught her hands up tight together and pressed the knuckles to his lips, "my very dear Miss Parsons, please understand me, or I will begin to feel a perfect fool.” He looked into her eyes and spoke with slow, exacting deliberation.

“I mean to ruin you."

Charlotte shrieked, tore her hands free and lunged for the pistol. Mr. Southey, who had clearly not been expecting such open defiance, was a critical moment too slow in recapturing her wrist, so that when she brought the pistol up to bear on him he sat a moment in perfect silence, considering his options.

"I will not be ruined, Mr. Southey," poor Charlotte gasped. "Indeed, I refuse."

"I see that you do," he said soothingly. "Yes, I quite see that. And a fine and steady hand you have with my pistol, Miss Parsons, I cannot but congratulate you on it. One only hopes the carriage does not strike a rut. But you see," he leaned forward engagingly, as if inviting her to consider his side of affairs, "I did not come alone. I have under my command one of the two post-boys who ride the horses. Smithers is a very unsatisfactory sort of laquey 'tis true, for he was drunk today and quite late to arrive, and so nearly cost me the prize of you. But he rides a horse before us now, and he will do as he is bade on pain of his life.

"I am not a lone hand in this affair; one must delegate a certain amount of work, you understand? And I am a businessman at heart. So you must understand that I have the means to persuade you, one way or another, to surrender yourself to me."

"You might lose your own life in the process," Charlotte reminded him, pistol still in hand. Mr. Southey inclined his head to acknowledge this fact.

"But you would lose your shot, Miss Parsons, and your virtue besides. You have no way of knowing on the mercy of which post-boy you can fling the burden of your life. Lead-boy, do you think? Or does he ride by the wheel? You must choose. You might choose aright, but with my body lying on the ground and my pistol in your hand, will even the upright man stir to save you? And as to my own man . . . these are not fine fellows I command. They would debauch you in turns over my corpse if the fancy took them. But while I live, I have the means to command the obedience of my servant, and style myself your only ruiner." He smiled a little, as though he knew exactly how charming he looked when he did, and concluded, "who knows? You might even enjoy it."

Charlotte was scandalised at such a thought.

"I couldn't," she said. "It would be impossible."

Mr. Southey shrugged.

"Well, then you shall hate every minute and decry me as a bounder and cad, if that suits you better. I do not much mind which course of action you choose to take. But I _will_ see that best petticoat of yours, Miss Parsons, and everything you keep beneath it, too. I, or my man, together or in turns." He extended his hand, palm upturned, in quiet invitation. "Which do you prefer?"

Charlotte held herself in merciless rigidity a moment longer, then broke. With a sob she surrendered the pistol to his hand, and before she could even draw breath to sob again he was before her, dropping to his knees before the bench, hands on her stockinged ankles, trailing up, up, up—

Charlotte wept again.

"This will not be very good sport if you cry the entire time," Mr. Southey grumbled, though Charlotte did not think he looked entirely as if he meant it. "I mean to say, you may cry if you wish, provided you are quiet about it, but I shall be less invested in being gentle and considerate of my lady's needs if she will insist on great floods of tears, for I shall judge it very difficult to know if it is pain and discomfort which cause her to weep, or merely her general revulsion at my presence."

Charlotte could not give him an answer, for she was weeping still, but she did not miss the way his hands continued on, up, between her legs, past her garters, beneath the petticoat—

"This is trimmed with very fine lace, Miss Parsons. I would not have expected it on a garment of this quality. Did you make it yourself?"

—further up, and further still, until he touched—

Charlotte went quite white and rigid and silent and still.

Mr. Southey smiled.

"Miss Parsons," he said gently. "I asked you a question."

Charlotte stared fixedly at a point over his shoulder. He was touching . . .

"Miss Parsons?"

She swallowed.

Mr. Southey sighed, and stroked—tickled, even—with exquisite patience. Charlotte gave a low, tremulous moan and turned tearful eyes on his face.

"The lace, Miss Parsons," he said pleasantly, fingers still touching, stroking, teasing very gently against the softly private place he was definitely not supposed to even know about, much less avail himself of so freely. "Did you make it yourself?"

She nodded miserably.

"I made the lace on the hem. The upper layers were from a garment made for me as a child, by my—my—m—" but she could not bring herself to mention her poor mother in this place, in this context, and she broke off instead. Mr. Southey had the grace to redden just slightly at divining the author of the remaining lace. Then he cleared his throat and resumed his gentle exploration of everything between her legs.

"‘Twas my own error," he decided, "making drawing room conversation without a drawing room to sustain it. We are not courting in a salon; I am about to ruin you in a hired coach. One does not make small talk in such circumstances. I am in error. I supplicate myself at your feet, and shall address myself to the matter of penance forthwith."

And, so saying, he removed his hat, lifted her skirt, and—Charlotte stared, stunned—inserted his head and shoulders entirely beneath it. A moment later she felt a warm, gentle wetness apply itself to—

She would have kicked him, had he not seemed to anticipate the move and catch both her ankles in a grip of unyielding iron.

"Miss Parsons," he said sternly from beneath her skirt, "you must believe me that you do not wish me to employ my teeth at this juncture."

Then he lapsed into silence once more, so that Charlotte was forced to bump and jostle along as he licked—licked!—a sweet, scorching line up and down the dampening curls until . . . until . . . something made Charlotte quite dizzy.

It was a soft and lovely feeling, softer even than his tongue, but it built with an odd and undeniable pressure from within. What was he doing to her? Was this illness? Perhaps it was unhealthy for her to be licked like that. It _must_ be. Nobody had done it before, so it certainly could not be to the good. It must be something very wicked and ill-fortuned, to be licked and nibbled—nibbled! Charlotte gasped and squirmed, struggling until he pinched her thigh reprovingly and she subsided once more—in this way. So he must be making her sick, somehow. The feeling that was building within her, as sweet and menacingly pleasurable as it seemed, must be a portent of some dire fate that lay in wait. He was contaminating her with his tongue, possibly poisoning her, or—or—or— _oh_!

The pressing sweetness gave way inside her with a terrible, beautiful, rolling wave like nothing Charlotte had ever known. She clutched with muscles she had not known she owned, pulsed and fluttered and convulsed like something inside her had succumbed to a frenzy of mad fits. She cried out, quite beside herself, and remembered just in time to clutch at her own mouth to stifle the sound, lest Mr. Southey should arise to perform the task with less tenderness and far more force.

When the sensation at last subsided, Charlotte fell back, gasping, against the jolting wall of the post chaise and tried to catch her breath. Mr. Southey, for his part, emerged from below with his chin damped and his mouth pleasurably, wickedly curled.

"Miss Parsons," he said softly, "I congratulate you. You are a woman not yet made, but a woman's inclination you have, without question. That is a most delightfully responsive little jewel you have secreted beneath your skirts and I am already her most ardent devotee, even an I am her first."

"I . . ." Charlotte began, then thought better of it, and gulped for air instead. Mr. Southey laughed.

"Speechless!" he cried. "I would not have thought it, but I like you even better. How pleasant to see you are also a woman who can hold her tongue."

Charlotte, far from holding only her tongue, held her face instead. Her shoulders shook and Mr. Southey's elation ebbed at the sight.

"Oh, come now," he chided. "Enough of these tears. I have not harmed you, have I? It cannot have been as bad as all that. You spent on my tongue like a seasoned courtesan, and I like you the better for it. Do not tell me you found it unpleasant."

She looked at him with some spark of ire fighting through her fatigue and the reeling of her senses, almost indignant once more.

"Unpleasant! Mr. Southey, you put your mouth on my—" but here she stopped, because how in the world could she complete the accusation?

"Ah," he said, intrigued by her dilemma. "Yes, indeed. Your what, Miss Parsons? What name do you give that part of yourself? I should hate to shock you by naming it first, and yet if you know it by no term that is familiar to me, we will have a devilish tricky time of it when I attempt to explain myself to you in advance of your ruination."

"What, am I not ruined yet?" Charlotte asked, much confused and suitably distracted. "Was that not my ruination?"

"Well," said Mr. Southey thoughtfully, "it might be termed as much, if somebody had walked in on us. But we are perfectly private here, and I think what can fairly be called your ultimate ruin is something rather more final than that. It goes a bit beyond a man simply playing the tomcat and lapping at your—er—blast it, Miss Parsons, we are back to the problem of your lexicon."

So saying, he fit his hand casually between her legs again and stroked her there. To her shock and horror, she seemed to be different, somehow, now that it had happened. A slickness she could not fairly have claimed to know she possessed now eased the passage of his fingers, allowing him to slide them through the very folds against which his tongue had made such recent trespass, and then between them, and even—

She shrieked and clamped her knees together.

" _Mr. Southey!_ "

"Miss Parsons!" he retorted, and gave her a little slap, smart and stinging, right on the soft flesh and curls of her most private place, so that she sobbed in defeat and let her legs fall open again, obedient to his demand.

"There," he said, pleased, stroking her again, "what an obliging little soul you can be. I am most pleased with you. Do you know, I think we are coming to understand one another already. You see that I will not hurt you if you give me my way, and I see that you are not merely a very pretty girl, a bit of melting sugar done up in muslin with a bow that fairly begs to be untied, but quite a good and clever girl besides. You will do as you are told, and do not take much teaching to get there. So we can proceed with this understanding, and I can ruin you completely before we arrive at your stop. An efficient night's work, Miss Parsons, I defy you to deny it."

Poor Charlotte looked at him most beseechingly, but Mr. Southey only looked blandly back, his hand still beneath her skirt, his finger still between her very soft and private place, swirling, twirling, pressing—oh god. _In_. Pressing _in_.

She now understood to a very certain degree what must be about to happen, but so distasteful a thought to Charlotte it was that she refused to contemplate it further. Instead she said simply, "Call it by whatever name you wish. It would be unseemly for me to name it anything to you."

Mr. Southey laughed and cupped his hand, now slickly triumphant, over the softness of her and gave a dreadful squeeze, which Charlotte could not own to even herself did not feel entirely unpleasurable, for it pressed against some part of her which he had licked before, and which gave a satisfied little hum at finding itself so recently again in contact with he who had previously made it sing.

"You may call it your cunt," he said pleasantly, "for I certainly intend to. At least," reflectively, "perhaps I should instead call it _my_ cunt, for in a very short time from now I shall lay such claim to it that it may as well be." He searched her face, eyes dancing. "I will certainly use it like it is, and Miss Parsons may in turn come to find exactly what she's made for."

So saying, he applied his fingers with renewed ferocity to the act of forcing her open, sliding them inside her, first one, then two—Charlotte gasped, and writhed upon the bench—and then, most dreadfully, a third, for which she quite forgot herself and tried to scream but suffered again the rude shock of his hand clamping down across her mouth.

He rose up on his knees before her, hand sealing her lips, eyes boring into her own, his other hand making free, aggressive use of her cunt. Thrusting his fingers into her, more rapid and rapid still, until the thing that had broke over her before was back, but wilder now, great and awful and unyielding, not a wave of pressure but a wall, an army of nerves, something hot and angry and ungovernable rising within at every brutal thrust of his hand until at last he curled his fingers just beyond her entrance, and—

The dam broke. The pleasure, angry and fierce and terrible, crashed through her lower and limbs and belly, shaking, convulsing, subduing, overcoming.

Charlotte’s unuttered scream echoed in her head and she collapsed, insensate, on the bench.

~*~

When Charlotte came to herself, her skirt was back in place. Between her legs it felt very tender and damp, but she no longer suffered the presence of Mr. Southey's invasion, so that was a mercy. Mr. Southey himself lounged on the bench opposite, a piece of paper unfolded in his hand, and appeared thoroughly engrossed in the perusal of it.

It took Charlotte a moment longer to realise that the paper he held was hers.

"That's my letter!" she cried, and made a grab for it. He, very casually and not at all alarmed by her forward lunge, caught her by the wrist and twisted so that she dropped to her knees at his feet, crying out. He released her wrist at once and cast an appraising eye over her position before returning his gaze to the letter.

The world beyond the coach was now completely dark. They rattled along through the night with only the lamplight to see by, and Charlotte was not even certain how much of her correspondence he could have read in the light that filtered in from beyond the uncurtained side windows.

“Why are you reading it?” she asked, and loathed the way her voice came out so small and broken.

“I was curious,” he said idly. A moment later he appeared to achieve the missive's conclusion, for he tossed it carelessly on the floor and watched with some amusement while she bent and fumbled to retrieve it. “While you were recuperating I searched your person for any valuables, in the chance you had lied to me.” He sat forward on his own perch, smiling. “I am pleased to report I now know you did not.”

“Searched me?” she said, dazed. “But—you already—I let you—why should I suffer such indignity if I knew I could end it by giving you what you wanted?”

“Some women like that sort of thing,” he said. “Or at least, so I am told. In any event,” he dusted his hands off, “you are awake again! I like _that_ sort of thing, myself, so let us continue.”

“Continue?” Charlotte echoed. Mr. Southey here adopted the air of a beleaguered schoolmaster tried long beyond the reaches of his deepest reserves of patience.

“Your ruination, Miss Parsons, proceeds according to schedule.”

“But,” she shook her head, confused, “surely by now—”

“Oh, Miss Parsons,” he chided. “Don’t you know by now that I understand far better than you how to ruin a nice girl?”

Charlotte did not respond. She only looked on with a kind of dull, dreadful shock as he undid something in the front of his breeches, so that a limb of flesh sprang forth, and—she quite had to look away. But he caught her by the chin and forced her face back so that she must gaze upon it, and she quailed. It was a dreadful thing, fleshy and all over veins, topped with a foreboding knob. She had to look away again, overcome with horror.

"Well," he said pleasantly, "I don't deny there's something to be said for a virgin's awe. You are not such an actress I think that I could mistake this for aught but your first sight of such a thing—a wonder, indeed, in this loose and immoral modern age. Why, I thought the Prince Regent alone had fucked half the willing women in London by now, and a good few of the unwilling besides. But 'twould appear he missed you." He searched Charlotte's face closely and seemed to like what he saw, for he smiled. His hand came up to rest with peculiar tenderness on the side of her face, tracing a delicate path along her jawline. "I will not make the same mistake."

Then he settled himself on the bench at her side, caught her firmly 'round the waist and lifted her up before him, as if intending that she should sit on his lap. "Lift your skirt now, Miss Parsons, and your best petticoat too. I impose upon you to render me this service as my hands, you see, are full."

Charlotte obeyed. She thought of refusing; even seriously considered it. But what next, after that, except that he should spank her cunt again and maybe her bottom besides, and have his way with her all the same? So she raised her petticoat and skirt to bare her backside to him, which sight he met with a soft, longing sigh.

"Oh, Miss Parsons," he said, his voice quite thick with something she thought might be his pleasure, but with a new strain underlying it all, "if I had known at first sight of you in the coach house what valuables you kept hidden under your skirt, I should have never let you reach the coach. I would have taken a room and ridden you into the feather tick until dawn. The road’s a sorry substitute for a pretty woman writhing beneath you in a good, warm bed, and I am sorry I shall not be the one to make you know it. But there! Fate has still smiled on one of us, to have ordained that we should meet at all, and I thank her for it."

So saying, he lowered her—lowered her backside—toward his lap and Charlotte felt it, the small limb of flesh, oddly stiff—was he ill? He could be ill, this certainly did not seem the pastime of a healthy man—probing between her legs, the soft, slick place where he had made his fingers so recently, rudely at home. Then he lowered her more, and she felt how her own weight must betray her, how she must settle upon him, around him—oh, mercy, she was to take him inside her.

With a little sob of revelation, of revulsion, Charlotte sank back upon the pole of flesh, the instrument of her education, and the advancement of her ruin, all three in one, a most unholy trinity of masculine mastery and demand. And yet she yielded to it most capably, she found, as it split her wide, it did not even— _oh_.

She gave a little cry, futile though she knew it to be, and found that he was at least sufficiently sensible of her pain not to tarry unfeeling at the entrance but rather pressed her rudely down upon him, quick, sharp—she shrieked—and then he was within her.

And she was _full_.

"Ohhh . . ." she said, unsteadily, and swayed. "I . . . _oh_."

"Mmm," he said complacently. "Bit of a size, is it not? I've had compliments, you know—oh, not to worry, Miss Parsons, I don't look for them from you. We can dispense with the performance of gratitude under the circumstance. But women with more experience in the ways of the world have given me to understand it's something to write home about. If, that is to say, one did write home about such things."

"I can't imagine," Charlotte said faintly, "why anybody would."

Then she fell silent, for the carriage had hit another bump and the effect of the corresponding jolt was to thrust him up inside her, much deeper, more abruptly than even Mr. Southey himself had advanced his entrance. "Oh God," she groaned as the second one hit. "Oh mercy," at the third. "Can you not at least make them stop driving?"

"Ah!" cried Mr. Southey, his hands still resting on her hips with a peculiar type of gentleness, one which restrained and soothed her by turns, keeping her his prisoner on the awful thing inside her but also stroking, gentling, teasing her skin with a kind of sweet sympathy she could not help but respond to, "she desires to delay the terminus! To prolong our interlude. Miss Parsons, I am most gratified—"

"Oh you beast!" she sobbed, but his laugh in response swallowed the rest of the sound.

"Forgive me, sweeting," he bade her. "I am not a good man, or an honourable one. I own both failings freely. But I hope I am not a pointlessly cruel man, in my own way, and I will make no further sport of you. Take your fucking like a good girl, will you not? Bring me pleasure with your cunt, your lips, your eyes—yes, Miss Parsons, roll them at me, wet my shirt with your tears, anything you can do to communicate that most flattering truth of the effect I am having on your untried flesh—and I shall finish with you just as I said I would. You need never hear from or think of me again."

His hands firmed on her waist, preparingly.

“Are we of an accord?"

Charlotte, focused entirely too closely on the feel of him inside her, the strangeness of it all, could only nod.

"Mmm?" he prodded, so she found her tongue.

"Yes," she whispered, and he sighed.

"I am glad to hear it. Now, Miss Parsons, let us see how fit you are to ride."

She could not discern his meaning until he began to shift her at the hips, his hands on her waist raising her up, dragging her down, again and again until the rhythm he ordained became clear. She rode him as he bade her, the awful thrusting thing filling her, falling back, then thrusting deeper still. The carriage jarred her in dreadful cooperation with his aim so that she yelped and gasped with every rut they struck, for it advanced his rut the deeper every time.

Speech, mercifully, was soon beyond them both so she no longer had to bear his praise, though she felt it in the way he reached around to stroke the tender little bud at the front of where he split her open and then petted her gently for her receipt of him, until her breath came faster and the feeling, that dreadful sweet pressure, began to build once more. She understood with rising misery that he meant her to suffer pleasure again, this time with him inside her, with her body rising and falling on his invading flesh as if she herself had ordained their coupling, as if he had not forced her into this role, a captive and yet-unbroken houri compelled to ride her master.

She sobbed, defeated, as he found the little nub again and pressed so that the pleasure broke in waves around her invader, the awful driving thrust that her cunt clamped and clutched at with such shameless abandon, as if it _wanted_ him there, as if it were _glad_ to receive him, as if he were right all along and this was what she was meant to do.

"Oh, _good_ girl," he crooned in her ear, grabbing her waist and pressing her down onto the length of him, holding her there, so it felt as if he grew up within her like a column, a tree, a pillar on which she was bound to hang for all eternity. "You absolute treasure. Spend for me again, sweeting; teach your cunt to love my cock as it should and I will make an end of your torment." His grip on the front of her most tender flesh firmed again, demanding, remorseless, masterful in its understanding of some part of her body she had not understood could even do this before tonight.

It wasn't fair, she thought, frantically. Not fair of him to use her this way, like he knew her body better than she did herself, knew what it could do, what he could make it do, so it almost felt like she enjoyed it, so that she almost felt _good_.

"No," she sobbed, " _please_ , no—" But he didn't listen. He pressed his fingers against her, short, sharp strokes without and within, so the pleasure built and she could not stop it, could not stop him.

"Again," he growled in her ear, "you'll do it again for me, do you hear?" And she came, sobbing, the unbearable humiliation of doing so as if on command washing through her in a tide to rival the pleasure itself.

" _Good_ girl," he exulted. "What a pet you are, my darling, what an absolutely perfect—fucking— _treasure_." And he bore her down on him in a new way, a deep, unyielding pressure, so that he filled her, so that she could feel all of him, every inch, the invasion more revoltingly complete than she had dreamed it could be—

He was surging within her, something wet, twitching, flooding her, filling her, and she was coming again, it wasn't _fair_ that he could make her do that, could make her body work against her for his pleasure's sake.

 _But then_ , some much colder and more pragmatic part of Charlotte reasoned, _when you come to think of it, life itself is so seldom fair. Nothing about anything that happened to even occasion this journey was fair. So why should this be?_

She had just time enough to notice that the voice sounded rather as she had always imagined the voice of The Other Aunt before a kind of roiling wave of surrender and unbearable exhaustion overtook her, and swallowed her up, so that again she briefly, mercifully, knew nothing more at all.

~*~

When Charlotte came to herself again, it was less as though from a faint and more as if from the depths of a truly exhausted sleep. Indeed she felt almost refreshed, and it did not hurt her disposition that this time she woke to find she was alone. There was no more uninvited company in the post chaise, and even the squeak and rattle of tack and harness, she realised, had at last ceased its clamour.

Beyond the post chaise it was silent, and the carriage itself stood still.

Was she abandoned? Had Mr. Southey and his unknown accomplice murdered the other post-boy and made off with the horses as recompense for the loss of the purse he had hoped to steal? Although, Charlotte thought, as she shifted on the bench and the sudden reminder of her most intimate invasion came flooding back in a cramp and ache and gentle trickle of something warm and wet on her thigh, he had certainly made free of the purse that he’d found.

She pressed her knuckles to her lips, fighting hysteria.

Were they lost in the woods? Was she abandoned; alone? Unable to bear the torment of wondering any longer Charlotte reached for the door, only to have the handle fall away under her hand. The wheel-boy, the stumpy little man who had ridden nearest the carriage, smiled up at her and stood aside to make room that she should descend.

“There you are, Missus,” he said warmly. “Brought you all the way home, safe and sound, h’ain’t we now?”

And so, Charlotte could see, they had.

They had not brought her to the house of The Other Aunt, which she knew at once although she had never laid eyes on that house before. They had brought her instead to the genteel little home on the outskirts of one of the shabbier parts of the better districts, a gentlewoman’s residence where she and Aunt Heloise had shared the rooms they let. The very same house she had left this morning, when Aunt Heloise put her on the coach.

“Oh,” she said. “Oh, yes, but . . .” she looked into the face of the post-boy, truly confounded. “I do not understand.”

“Ah,” said the post-boy, thoughtfully. He scratched his lumpy nose, considering. “I’ve a letter as I am to give you, should you first alight.”

Suspicion mounting sharply, Charlotte stepped down to the ground. The post-boy grinned and chucked his thumb in the direction of the door, which seemed to be a cue for the other to untie Charlotte’s trunk and carry it up the steps, out of earshot. Then the wheel-boy ducked his head toward her and spoke in confidential tones.

“Himself said as you’d be confused. But he also said as you had overpaid for the ride, and he wanted to make it square. So he gave me this here, see? To give to you.” And he placed the letter in her hand, tugged smartly at the brim of his tall, battered hat, then sprang up aboard his horse as his fellow rider jogged back down the steps and did the same.

“Good health t’you, Missus,” offered the man who was not entirely as honest as a post-boy. Then the post chaise clattered off, leaving Charlotte standing on her own doorstep, and unopened letter in her hand.

When she at last marshalled wits sufficient to approach the house, she was received by Aunt Heloise with much astonished confusion, and put her dear aunt off with the perfect truth that they had been set upon by bandits and so she could not possibly continue the journey tonight.

“Tomorrow,” Charlotte promised, they would see to the correction and amendment of their scheduled affairs. “All will be made right and well tomorrow, Aunt. There is nothing for it that can be helped tonight.”

Which was certainly true enough. Aunt Heloise, after delivering a very impassioned and impressive impromptu treatise on The World These Days and the inability of the forces of Law and Order to keep a grip on either one of their named charges, prepared a strong cup of tea and soft hot water bottle, both of which she left for the private use of her niece in the very small, cosy room at the top corner of the house.

There, in the only private place she had left to her name, after making sure the door was well and truly locked, Charlotte drew her private letter out from the depths of her pocket and unfolded it under the lamp light to read.

> My Dear Miss Parsons,
> 
> I first beg your pardon for letting you sleep so long, but you had the look of one who needed it. Not used to much rough riding yet, are you? Give it time and practice and we will soon bring you up to scratch, but at this early stage of your training you are quick to tire and I do not think less of you for that. Indeed you look quite charming, sprawled unwitting on the bench before me, and were I not respectably wearied from our first ride I should be tempted to take you for a second.
> 
> I must now confess to making freer use of your person and possessions than I previously allowed you to believe. The letter I found in your pocket, addressed from one aunt to the other, was marked with a name and address that are known to me. The financial woes of the aunt with whom you reside, which were rather more than strongly hinted at in the letter, are not in any way shared by the other. Indeed, your other aunt is one of the richest women in her county, and notoriously close-fisted at that.
> 
> I have determined, therefore, to make ready use of you in one more escapade tonight, though I am pleased to assure you that for this one, at least, you will not feel a thing.
> 
> Your aunt will be given to believe that, after meeting you on the road, I took you away and keep you now in my power, rather than having delivered you safely to the doorstep of the home you so recently departed. You will note, Miss Parsons, I do not in fact elect to spirit you away, but please believe me when I say it was a very narrow escape you had on that front. The notion of keeping you quite close appeals to me very strongly indeed, and it is only the double robbery which I visit on you tonight which spares you the happy fate of waking to learn you are mine to keep, and that reprieve is only good as long as you support me in this small matter.
> 
> Your aunt, informed that you are my luckless captive, will on the strength of that deception be induced to part with such a sum of money as will keep me in comfort for the rest of my days—and you also, if you are able to hold your tongue when it comes to the timing of the thing. I do not propose anything approaching an equal share, for we in no way assume an equal risk, but I think a small present might be made to the gentle lady who furnished me with such sport en route to her final destination.
> 
> If you are amenable to these terms, pray leave some token which signifies that fact by your walk gate. My agent will keep a watch for it, and at the sight of your signal he will endeavour to finalize the arrangement. If we are not in accord on this point, I will respect your principles but warn you now: do not imagine you can long seek to cross me and remain at liberty. Indeed, given the prospect of revisiting our little lesson further I cannot but hope you might seek to cross me after all, for it will give me the pleasure of teaching you better than that. You are, I perceive, a diligent student and quick study, and I should relish the pleasure of tutoring you accordingly. But I fear you are too sensible a girl to imagine my hopes may be realised.
> 
> In any event, Miss Parsons, I thank you warmly for the warmth of your company, unwillingly though you shared it, and I contemplate with mounting pleasure the day when our paths might cross again.
> 
> Until such time I remain your devoted servant,
> 
> R.S.

Charlotte read this missive three times through, set it down, picked it up again and read it a fourth. Then again she set it down, and sat back in her chair to think.

Money.

He proposed to send her money. Money that he would obtain from The Other Aunt, on the pretext of holding her captive for a ransom. Ransom from The Other Aunt, who was evidently extremely rich, though she had declined to share that information with Aunt Heloise, who was extremely _not_ rich.

Charlotte could not countenance such chicanery, of course. She must go at once to Aunt Heloise, explain matters as best she could—the interlude in the carriage would certainly need to be glossed over—and endeavour to communicate the happy news of her safety to The Other Aunt.

But if she did . . .

Charlotte’s hand moved toward the letter, hovered, then returned to her lap once more.

The Other Aunt, knowing her safe and the demand a ruse, would pay no ransom. No sum would be forthcoming to Aunt Heloise to relieve the burden of her living expenses, and besides that there was the risk of retribution from Mr. Southey. He threatened retaliation against her if she sought to expose his plot. Retaliation in the act of making her truly his captive, and no doubt holding her to ransom besides. At least, Charlotte _hoped_ he meant to hold her to ransom. The alternative, that he might exact long and demanding payment from her flesh, did also cross her mind. She remembered with vivid clarity the press of his body inside her, his mastery of her pleasure and his demand that she share it with him, and shuddered, revolted.

So perhaps rushing to Aunt Heloise to reveal this scheme was not advisable. At least, not yet.

But then . . . what to do?

Charlotte pressed her face to her hands a moment, wrestling with the weight of it all.

What, after all, did she need to do, really? Put out some small sign by the gate, to let his man know they they could come to terms. Or perhaps put no sign at all, and hope he could divine she did not mean to take his money, but neither did she mean to expose him and risk the threat of a second, more prolonged abduction. Or would he then fear she could not be trusted to hold her tongue and take her anyway, the better to be sure of her silence?

Charlotte wrung her hands in her lap in an agony of indecision. Then, slowly, she calmed.

No action need be taken tonight. Indeed, no action should be. She was overwrought, she was overtired, and she had been ridden overly hard by a man who now sought to follow her into the sanctum of her own private thoughts and cast even these into turmoil. But she would not allow it. There was time enough for decisions tomorrow.

Charlotte slipped the letter into the pocket of her dress, fetched her workbasket from the trunk, and removed the gown she wore. Sitting down in her undergarments of chemise, short corset, stockings and best petticoat, she set at once to basting the seam of her pocket shut with steady, even stitches. Not her finest work, perhaps, but sufficient to deceive any casual onlooker as to the presence of such a pocket, and missive within it. Satisfied with the result, she hung the dress up for the morning and turned to tidy her workbasket.

As she did, her eye fell on a scrap of work she had not long ago discarded: a bit of lace, more crudely worked than she would have liked, serving as a kind of practice piece on which she had been trialling a design. It was in truth not good for much of anything, now, save perhaps, if one were in need of some small signal, a token of intent . . .

Charlotte stared at the lacework a very long moment, then abruptly snapped the lid of the basket shut. No need, she reminded herself, to act tonight; there was time enough tomorrow for that.

And with aching thighs and weary head, Miss Parsons put out the light and went at last, alone, to bed.

~*~


End file.
